Need
by The Last Letter
Summary: He's a puzzle and she's a piece.


It's never occurred to Sherlock Holmes that he might need somebody.

He's never really _needed_ anything before. There's been _wants_, deep wants that flower across everything and demand his attention but he's always been able to turn away from those if need be. Even when he loved – and how he loved her – he could never see himself needing her. Irene had been lovely, exquisite, and he'd wanted nothing more than to have her by his side for as far into the future as he could see (that hadn't quite worked out in either of their favors and he still dreamed of her at night).

He'd never viewed it as needing the drugs either. They had been an end to the means – he became a better intellectual, his mind finding higher planes that, previously, he could only hypothesize existed. They had been easy enough to shake himself of (compared to the other addicts anyway). His body missed the stimulation from the heroin but he discovered ways for his mind to work without it. It hadn't been necessary after all.

He had never experienced that _need_ that he's read about and viewed on television shows and heard other people speak of. He'd never had that feeling of being consumed by something. He had his loves and he had his wants but he'd never had a fiery, overwhelming, all-encompassing _need_ for anything, ever, at all.

So when he needs her, he doesn't realize it.

He didn't need her at first. She was interference; someone his father had hired to follow him to his seedy corners of hell and make sure that he didn't stay there. He would even admit to hating her in the first few moments together. She was inexperienced and inexplicably broken – he didn't like broken people, fascinating though they were. She was going to drive him back to drugs. Of this, he was sure.

Of course she was beautiful but that didn't mean anything. He knew first hand that beauty didn't guarantee anything.

And then, overnight it seemed, she wasn't that prickly little annoyance anymore. She was _Joan_ and that meant something.

She still tagged along behind him and asked questions about things that were obvious but she also began to see. She began to see how he did and this took him aback: no one had ever been able to understand him but with her dark eyes and intelligence she began to learn. This, he admired. If she could learn than she didn't have to be the sober companion he had been dreading for weeks. She could become his apprentice; his student.

He could deal with a student.

He would never call her friend.

As the weeks drew on she still drove him. She had odd habits like jogging and she made him think about his violin and she **remembered Angus' name.** She made him tea and protected him – more than was probably in her job description. Oh yes, he knew her secret. It might have stung like betrayal if he hadn't hated the thought of her leaving as much as he had originally hated the thought of her arriving. So mum's the word.

It's only when Rhys arrives – Rhys and the memories that he carries and the drugs in his hand – that Sherlock Holmes realizes that he needs someone.

And it's not Rhys.

It's Joan.

She's standing there as he's got Rhys pinned to the chair. She looks as beautiful as she did on the day they met but she's more relaxed now. He glances down at Rhys and is suddenly angry. He doesn't need anyone or anything. He never needed Irene, he never needed the drugs, he never needed the dealer – hell, he never needed his _father_ – and now, all of a sudden, he needs this wispy girl that he didn't even want in his life?

No.

He leaves.

And then, she's in danger. He thinks she's going to die. When he sees her alive and well it takes all that he has not to spill out his new-found revelation. He's gotten so used to that with her: he's never filtered his thoughts or hidden his line of thinking, no matter how odd. She helped him, guided him through the terrain of his mind and helped him see the solid paths that he'd been forging. She was not his companion, his student. She was his partner and somehow it seemed more intimate than 'friend' ever could.

She asks if he's alright.

No, no he's not. For the first time in his life he needs someone and he doesn't know how long she'll be here. He doesn't know what he'll do when she's not making breakfast in the morning in her jogging clothes or when he can't take advantage of her confusion about how his mind works (he'd convinced her that he was going to cook the tortoise – he was having way too much fun with her just to let her go). But he was going to have to let her go.

This didn't feel like losing Irene – a swift blow to the heart that left him reeling. Knowing that Joan was in front of him but already gone felt as though he was being crushed beneath boulders. He can try to escape their weight but he never will; he's trapped while she's here and he'll remain so long after she's gone. This knowledge is already haunting him.

He needs her but he doesn't know how to need something. He doesn't know how to deal with the feelings that are taking over his body. He just knows that they are there and they **matter**. He doesn't want them to matter, to reside in his heart rubbing against the dead spot where Irene once lived.

He meets her eyes and tells her he's dandy.

He's Sherlock Holmes.

He doesn't need anyone.

**I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my glorious beta: Noble6.**

**~TLL~**


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